Does Amazon Really Need Human Workers ???

Do you remember those Amazon jobs I mentioned a month ago?

“Associates will be stationed at ergonomic work stations and when customer orders come in, the robots will bring the inventory to them at the work station, where an associate will pick the item off a shelf and put in a tote and get sent off to packing,” explains Ashley Robinson, spokesperson for Amazon Operations.

Source - http://kxan.com/2016/05/31/amazon-looking-to-fill-1000-new-jobs-in-san-marcos/

Well, it looks like they may be VERY short lived:

Robot developers say they are close to a breakthrough - getting a machine to pick up a toy and put it in a box.

It is a simple task for a child, but for retailers it has been a big hurdle to automating one of the most labor-intensive aspects of e-commerce: grabbing items off shelves and packing them for shipping.

Several companies, including Saks Fifth Avenue owner Hudson’s Bay Co. and Chinese online-retail giant JD.com Inc., have recently begun testing robotic “pickers” in their distribution centers. Some robotics companies say their machines can move gadgets, toys and consumer products 50% faster than human workers.

& & & & & & & &

Until recently, robots had to be trained to identify and grab each item, which is impractical in a distribution center that might stock an ever-changing array of millions of products.

Automation companies such as Kuka AG, Dematic Corp., and Honeywell International Inc. unit Intelligrated, as well as startups like RightHand Robotics Inc. and IAM Robotics LLC are working on automating picking.

You can read the rest @
https://www.wsj.com/articles/next-leap-for-robots-picking-out-and-boxing-your-online-order-1500807601

Organisms become "extinct" when they no longer can adapt to a rapidly changing environment. Technology has enabled rapid, unstoppable changes with which humans do not and cannot cope.

We are, in effect, rapidly headed toward extinction.

And NO Jeff Bezos is not going to help us colonize the solar system. What would be the point, other than raising us like cattle to sell to some E.T. buyers with a taste for human flesh?